By Kuang Zhanting

Guangdong Provincial Government has recently distributed “Comprehensive Development Program for Guangdong Coastal Economic Belt (2017-2030)”(hereinafter referred to as “the Program”), and the comprehensive,strategic and restrictive Program identifies future development strategy and development goals, major tasks, space deployment and safeguard measures and guides reform development and modernization construction of the costal economic belt at the present and for a long time to come.

Under the Program, Guangdong will accelerate optimization and upgrade of marine ship product structure, stress on bulk carriers, oil tankers and container vessels, improve ship R&D and design capability and ocean engineering equipment EPC and design capability, propel construction of Guanghzou Longxue, Huhai Gaolan port and Shenzhen ocean engineering equipment manufacturing bases; center on ocean engineering equipment manufacturing, marine bio-pharmaceutical, ocean electronic information and other emerging ocean industries, break through a number of generic technologies and key technologies, strengthen ship and ocean engineering equipment supporting system and equipment development; rely on ship and ocean engineering equipment manufacturing bases and deepwater ocean engineering equipment bases, vigorously develop ocean engineering equipment manufacturing industry, etc. and strive to achieve the goal of ocean engineering equipment manufacturing reaching the world advanced level.

Industry Development Moves High End

For the purpose of building advanced ocean engineering equipment manufacturing bases, the Program pledges to speed up optimization and upgrade of marine ship product structure,stress on bulk carriers, oil tankers and container vessels, improve ship R&D and design capability, accelerate development of high-technology and high valueadded ships such as LNG carriers, ocean engineering auxiliary vessels, multifunctional ocean engineering vessels,offshore wind power installation ships and luxury cruise ships as well as key parts such as smart navigation systems,marine diesel engines and electric propulsion systems, drive militarycivil marine equipment research and production integrated development and result sharing, construct Guangzhou and Zhongshan shipbuilding bases,Jiangmen small and medium ship and marine equipment manufacturing bases and Zhuhai yacht industry R&D and manufacturing base.

Guangdong will give full play to geographic advantage of neighboring the South China Sea, widen deepsea and high sea development, orients goal at development and utilization of ocean ecology, ocean mineral products and ocean oil and gas resources. The province will build deepsea mineral resources center to carry out deepsea oil and gas resource exploration,deepsea mineral resource exploration,deepsea microorganism species resource collection and preservation and highprecision submarine exploration; build Nanhai deepsea base, hammer out deepsea ocean equipment test base and assembly base and construct maritime public test ground for ocean technology equipment and deepsea biological resource center, etc.

Facing deepsea and high sea resource exploitation, equipment must keep abreast. The Program calls for vigorous development of ocean engineering equipment EPC and design capacity, break through R&D design and manufacturing technology of ocean engineering equipment including LNGFPSO, LNG-FSRU and ultra deepwater drilling platform, form general assembly manufacturing capacity for special system R&D and manufacturing of mooring positioning system, generator set,dedicated job package and other ocean engineering equipment, and encourage development of intelligent terminal and new generation port machinery. The Program vows to boost construction of Guanghzou Longxue, Huhai Gaolan port and Shenzhen ocean engineering equipment manufacturing bases, and make overall arrangement to build ocean engineering equipment bases in Yangjiang and Shanwei in due course.It also pledges to actively develop ocean dedicated equipment, develop products of deepsea environment monitoring,deepwater detection, ocean satellite remote sensing and underwater operation equipment, and support Guangzhou to build the national marine special equipment testing center.

The Program also mentions R&D of coating -- an important supporting product required by ocean equipment.Guangzhou will give priority to development of deep processing industries relying on ocean resources such as chloralkali, sodium carbonate and bromine,actively develop ocean anti-corrosion coating, ocean inorganic functional material,ocean high molecular material products and algal chemical new products, and support Zhenjiang, Maoming and Jieyang to build ocean fine chemical bases.

Innovation as Transformation and Upgrade Power

Industry couldn’t move high end without innovation drive. Only by energetic implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy,can technological innovation and industry innovation linkage be promoted, new research and technical achievements take shape, popularization of relevant achievements be realized, core technology be really mastered, transformation to high-end industry be realized and ocean industry competitiveness be improved.

The Program urges to promote the strategy of “Rejuvenating ocean equipment with science and technology”,center on ocean engineering equipment manufacturing, marine bio-pharmaceutical, ocean electronic information, sea water desalination and comprehensive utilization and other emerging ocean industries, break through a number of generic technologies and key technologies, strengthen ship and ocean engineering equipment supporting system and equipment development.To be more specific, Guangdong will actively strengthen R&D of general technology, core and key technology and prospective pilot technology for ecofriendly ships, high-technology ships and ocean engineering equipment design and manufacturing, carry out breakthrough of key and core technology of ocean engineering equipment, ocean biological products and new and high-technology ocean engineering material sectors, give priority to break through high-strength steel efficient automatic welding and cutting technology and equipment for ocean platform, large size pipe laser automatic welding technology and equipment, submersible titanium alloy narrow gap welding technology, welding technology of low-temperature steel for polar region shipbuilding, duplex stainless steel for chemical tanker, alloy and other special material for yacht and special ship, and key and core technologies of new generation underwater production system, new-type fiber composite flexible pipe-cable, ocean engineering structure and ship corrosion prevention and recovery, ocean data transmission, etc.

In the direction of products,Guangdong will give priority to development of deepsea oil and gas,natural gas hydrate and other submarine energy exploitation technology equipment and deepwater drilling platform, jackup and self-propelled workover platform,large near-port engineering equipment,unmanned submersible, deepwater robot,polar ship, chemical tanker, multifunction ocean support vessel, offshore wind power installation vessel, offshore wind power operation and maintenance vessel, semi-submersible, drilling ship,hoisting pipe laying ships and other ocean technological innovation products.★